I would still give the upside down thing a shot. The kids get a kick out of it ( and so did i). If you use a pole to suspend the upside down tomato basket, you can grow pole beans up the pole, therefore, not a total loss

i did the topsy turvy thing l didn't get many tomatoes. i planted two kinds of tomatoes. and planted several others in very large pots. they were just about even in production. i remember the days when my dad has so many tomatoes, my mom canned a lot of them for use in winter.

once i had a tomato grow in some sludge we hauled in for the yard. delicious and very big. guess if it survived the human that ate it, it was really hardy.

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"life isn't about how to survive the storm but how to dance in the rain"

Shortly after I started this thread, I was very disheartened to see that I had a small amount of seedlings. So few I could count them on my hands. :(

Being curious I checked out my tomato seeds and I discovered they had not even budged from their little seeds. I dug them out and put a very very small amount of dirt over the non-growers and guess what...at last count I have 179 tomato starts. That's one-seven-nine.

The first ones are almost big enough to pot! I have basil growing and my poppy flowers are sprouting too although still small. It has been so cold and rainey here that we don't get much sun but I am greatly pleased with the progress. :) I have compost all ready to use in the dirt!

I planted zuccini since then and strawberries. Unfortunately, my large not-smart dog licked out some of the seeds and ate the dirt. So I am not sure how many strawberry plants I will be getting at this point. But I will have plenny tomatoes!

One thing about seed-saving .... peppers. I learned the interesting way that peppers cross-polinate very, very easily! One year we had two different kinds of peppers, in containers, on opposite sides of the (very large) veranda. One was an upright yellow, somewhat hot pepper we called the papal peppers (a friend had picked the peppers from a terrace in the Vatican and gave us one, we saved and planted the seeds). The other was a cayenne; that is to say downward hanging, long red.. We only saved the papal pepper seeds (the cayenne were readily available) and in the subsequent years we harvested weird variations of peppers from different plants (only using seeds from the papal peppers). You can actually create your own varieties of peppers by doing this. An interesting lesson for kids!

I save my tomato seeds by drying them on a paper towel ( similar to the paper plate method above). The seeds will dry and stick to the paper towel. I dont even attempt to remove them. The following year I just tear off the piece of paper towel with the seed on it and plant it. I still have seeds from a tomato i grew 10 years ago. It was the best tomato ive ever eaten. I label and date the paper towels.

One thing about seed-saving .... peppers. I learned the interesting way that peppers cross-polinate very, very easily! One year we had two different kinds of peppers, in containers, on opposite sides of the (very large) veranda. One was an upright yellow, somewhat hot pepper we called the papal peppers (a friend had picked the peppers from a terrace in the Vatican and gave us one, we saved and planted the seeds). The other was a cayenne; that is to say downward hanging, long red.. We only saved the papal pepper seeds (the cayenne were readily available) and in the subsequent years we harvested weird variations of peppers from different plants (only using seeds from the papal peppers). You can actually create your own varieties of peppers by doing this. An interesting lesson for kids!

Many peppers start out as hybrids (as are many seeds these days), so their seeds will produce plants that are the same as the original AND that are like their parents. Add is cross polination and the varities are endless.